


Let that fever make the water rise

by gertie_flirty



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 17:05:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gertie_flirty/pseuds/gertie_flirty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Old Lady Gibson's lived a long time, and scavenging is the same as always. But there's always surprises out on the Mojave, no matter how long you've been around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let that fever make the water rise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dizzy_fire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy_fire/gifts).



When you’re first learning to shoot out on the Mojave, whoever’s doing the teaching makes a special mention that the dust and sand can clog up your gun. If you don’t clean it out on a fairly regular basis, it’ll ruin the thing and reduce it to scrap metal that’ll maybe get you no more than 15 caps from the Gun Runners. What they never tell you is how damn often it happens. 

Big Boomer lives up to its name. It’s a heavy, solid piece of work she’s been carrying around for nearly fifty years now. The damn desert dust gets down inside the barrels and gums up the works something awful. She has to pause before she gets to the small town she was heading towards to clean it out, in case Fiends have squatted in the houses. Unlikely, considering the supply line for their drugs from the Great Khans is miles away now. Besides, her dogs will start barking if there’s any sort of trouble nearby. 

They all call her Old Lady Gibson. No one’s cared to find out her first name since her old man died, and that’s fine with her. She never liked it anyway, but being known as “Old Lady” is hardly better. Once, they called her Mrs. Gibson, which was well enough. Kids nowadays let formalities drop a lot easier than they did in the past.

Rocks crunch beneath her feet, and she kicks at the ground with the toe of her boot, sending pebbles skittering across the desert floor. Basura sniffs idly at one of the scrub bushes that’s clinging to life on the desert floor. When she was young, there was still so much radiation left even the hardiest plant life was hard to find. Now vegetation is popping up throughout the landscape, dry grass and California wildflowers pushing their way up into the world. It makes her feel uncomfortable and hopeful at the same time.

Fiel growls softly, a low noise that’s hollow in the back of his throat. She only brought the two dogs with her, leaving the others back at the scrapyard. Obviously something’s nearby. The town should be over the ridge right ahead of her, and Fiel’s growl means that it’s occupied. She clicks her tongue and the dogs circle back and heel next to her. Stooping down low and ignoring the creak of her old bones, she unhitches the shotgun from her back and approaches the ridge slowly, taking cover behind a large Indian Paintbrush bush. The leaves of the plant are bright green, but dense enough to cover her as she peeks out at the town. 

Clapboard houses are arranged down at the bottom of slight slope, weathered and broken and patched up with odd pieces of plywood. It’s not the houses she’s concerned with, but the group of young men gathered in the center of them, laughing and yelling around a bonfire. She squints her eyes trying to get a better look. Powder Gangers, for sure, judging by those prison looking uniforms. She puts one hand up to shield her eyes against the sun. It’s getting late in the day, she had hoped to be back at the scrapyard by sundown. There’s only ten men, though, maybe she can—wait.

A small dark figure darts between two of the houses on the far row. Old Lady Gibson reaches down into her side bag and pulls out a pair of binoculars. She focuses in on the town, searching for the source of the movement. Huddled on one side of a particularly small house is a tiny, scraggly thing with long dirty hair and a set of clothes torn and stitched together from other pieces of clothing.

“Aw, damn,” Old Lady Gibson mutters, replacing the binoculars in her satchel. “Basura.”

The dog crawls over to her and she whispers in its ear. Quickly, he runs down the gentle slope of red rock and dashes behind a house, out of sight. The Powder Gangers don’t notice anything, laughing and drinking bottles of whiskey they probably scavenged in the town. Who knows what other supplies they’ve managed to scrounge up. She hopes there’s still something left for her. One thing she’s certain of—where there’s Powder Gangers, there’s dynamite. 

She starts to make her own way down the hill, sliding slowly, keeping her eyes on the group at all times. She gestures at Fiel to make sure he comes with her. They make it to the bottom, and she runs in a crouch to the opposite end of the group of houses that she sent Basura to. The Powder Gangers are dangerous, but far from stupid, and probably kept their explosives far away from the fire they’ve started. Basura hasn’t made any noise, so they’re most likely at her end of town. She drops to her belly, planning to enter a nearby house, but then notices something out of the corner of her eye. There’s a giant pile of uncharged dynamite and other explosives behind a short chicken wire fence.

“Well, they weren’t trying to hide the stuff at least,” she whispers to herself. She has a few options now. Shooting with Big Boomer will make an awful lot of noise, but so will lighting any of these fuses. She doesn’t have any matches on her anyway. She wonders if she can throw as well as she used to. There’s only one way to find out.

She gathers up about five single sticks of dynamite, as much as she can hold in one hand. Still in a crouching position, she scuttles a few feet closer to the fire. Trying to keep out of sight, she grabs one of the sticks and throws it hard. It lands a few feet too short. The sound of it hitting the hardened dirt on the desert floor causes one of the Powder Gangers to pause in his revelry and turn around in curiosity.

“Shit,” she curses. She practically leaps forward two feet and throws again, quickly. 

This time, it lands right in the center of fire. 

The explosion is instant, loud, and huge, taking out six of the gang members. Their bodies hit the ground, blackened and charred, and everything after that happens quickly. Old Lady Gibson is on her feet, slinging Big Boomer around, taking aim at the Powder Ganger who had turned around and moved just enough to be out of range of the explosion. His luck ends when the shotgun shell meets his head. Fiel is on top of another man, teeth ripping out his throat as the Ganger’s screams die with him. Gibson swings her shotgun, cracking the skull of another man without even wasting any ammo. As he falls to the ground, she slams the butt of the gun into his head again for good measure. That’s nine now, by her count. She looks around for the last man, and he’s doing his damnedest to run away from the scene, but he’s hobbled and limping, making his run a sad stumble. Old Lady Gibson sighs, reloading her shotgun. After a few seconds, she lifts it again and shoots him in the back. He doesn’t scream as he falls. Better that way. Means he died instantly.

She stands still, looking around for anyone else. Putting her teeth to her lips, she whistles, long and low. It’s an odd, hollow sort of sound that bounces off the sides of the valley. From a short distance, Basura barks. She jogs over to the sound, coming from behind a nearby house. Basura is pacing back and forth, barking like crazy, in front of a spindly child that’s gripping onto the house’s back door, trying to bust through the lock. 

“Hey, now, it’s all right. Quiet, Basura,” Gibson whistles sharply, and Basura quiets and joins Fiel by the old lady’s side. The kid is the dirtiest creature she’s ever seen; hair a dusky blond in a shoulder length tangle, matted with dirt. Sand and dust covers the kid’s clothes, which are threadbare and torn, including the shoes which have noticeable holes. Gibson asks, “You a boy or a girl?”

“What difference does it make?” the kid replies, scowling. The kid’s voice is high, squeaky, but angry. Can’t be more than nine or ten years old. 

“None, I suppose. Where are your parents?”

“Dead. Killed by raiders. I was living in this town by myself just fine—the big house at the end of the street’s got a huge basement full of old canned food. Then the Powder Gangers came and I had to hide.”

The kid is giving away too much information, but Old Lady Gibson can’t fault them. “There still food there?”

The kid shifts their eyes back and forth, realizing maybe they should be talking so much. Nonetheless, the kid answers, “Not much. The Gangers ate most of it.”

Old Lady Gibson rubs the back of her neck. “All right, then, you gotta come with me. You can’t stay here for much longer, you’ll starve.”

She can see the kid tense. They want to run away, fast and far. But the kid is tired, she can see that. It’s been hard for the kid, and they’re hungry, and they’re grateful this old woman killed all the Powder Gangers.

“All right,” says the kid. 

“What’s your name?”

“Alex. What’s your name?”

“You can call me Gibson.”

Alex leads her to the big house, and the kid was right. There’s only a few cans left, and some bottles of Sunset Sarsparilla. Old Lady Gibson loads them into her pack, and they set off with the dogs back to the scrap yard. Alex is tired, but doesn’t complain.

The sun is setting, flaring up bright plumes of orange and gold through the sky, making the desert look red and burning. There’s a small breeze coming with the onset of the night, pushing around a few grains of sand over the packed dirt of the desert floor. Old Lady Gibson inhales, deeply, taking in the smell of world. It’s dry and arid and harsh, but beautiful. She looks down at the kid, who’s carrying a large backpack they took off one of the dead Powder Gangers. The weight doesn’t seem to bother Alex any, so she figures the kid is used to it.

There’s a very faint sound coming from about fifty yards away, a skittering and clicking. The dogs start whining and cower behind Old Lady Gibson and Alex. 

“Damn,” she mutters. “Radscorpions.” 

Her first instinct is to veer sharply to the left and take a wide berth around the insects. It looks like there’s only two. Big Boomer doesn’t work well from too far away, and the dogs won’t go near them. In the few seconds she’s taken to pause, Alex has knelt to the ground and started opening the backpack. The kid pulls out a long rifle and attaches a scope to the top. The rifle is almost as long as the kid, but Alex handles it easily. The sunset glints off the lens of the scope. Alex curses and shifts it their other shoulder and looks through the scope with a different eye, something Old Lady Gibson has never seen a sniper do before. The kid pulls the trigger, once, and there’s a soft bang and one of the scorpions lies dead on the ground. The other scorpion throws up its claws, screeching, noticing the small traveling group. The dogs cry louder, and Gibson swings her shotgun around, at the ready. It begins running toward them, sharp legs moving at lightning fast speed. 

But Alex pulls the trigger on the sniper rifle once more, and this scorpion is dead now too. Alex starts packing up the gun, saying, “I’m glad I didn’t forget it this time. The Gangers found where I hid it and had taken it before I could get it back. If I had had it to begin with, I never would’ve needed you.”

Old Lady Gibson is not insulted by this. The kid’s a great shot.

It’s dark before they make it back to the scrapyard. The other hounds run up, sniffing Alex all over, but they treat the kid nicely and follow Gibson around until she feeds them. The old lady shows Alex how the well works, and how to filter the water. It’s not radioactive, at least. It’s clean, just like in Goodsprings. She makes Alex wash, at least a little, and put on some new clothes. Nothing much cleaner than what the kid had been wearing, but less holes. When the caravan comes around in a few days, maybe she’d trade and get the kid some shoes too.

The next few days are rather interesting. The dogs like Alex, and the kid is excellent at digging things out of the bottom of the scrap pile that were long forgotten. Even the most obscure objects travelers come by for are found quickly by Alex’s small hands and tiny physique. It’s summer, and the sun rises higher and higher, making things hotter and hotter. The air starts to feel heavy, weighing on Old Lady Gibson’s bones. Her chest feels full of something bad. 

“Hey kid,” she tells Alex one night, sitting on the edge of the Repconn O she uses as a chair. “You should go into the scrapyard business.”

“You think?”

Alex is sitting on the ground, playing tug-of-war with Audaz using an old rag. The dog manages to yank it away, but Alex slips, cutting their hand on the edge of the O. A bright scarlet gash bursts out of their skin, and the kid yelps. Old Lady Gibson grabs a handkerchief out of her pocket and ties it around the kid’s hand. “Hold on, now.”

She shuffles off into the shack and grabs a bottle of vodka. The kid is letting Audaz lick around the wound. The old lady gently shoos the dog away and moves the handkerchief aside, gently pouring alcohol over the deep cut. The kid winces, but doesn’t complain. “All right, that should keep it from getting infected.”

But it doesn’t. The next day, Alex doesn’t get out of bed, and is sweating from a fever. Old Lady Gibson looks at the wound, and it’s a bad color. She changes the rag wrapped around it, but knows she can’t do much more.

She leaves the child in the shack and stands outside, watching the dogs play, snapping and pushing at each other. She’s lived a long time, even in this harsh wasteland. Alex can’t be more than ten years old. It’s not right. Old Lady Gibson is good at fixing things, but not people. Her chest is hurting, worse than ever, and it feels like breathing underwater. 

There’s a cloud of dust forming down the road. It parts, and there’s some Brahmin pulling a cart that’s leading a small caravan. There’s about three of four mercenaries walking alongside. The caravan takes its sweet time getting up to the scrapyard. The driver of the first cart is a slim young woman with strawberry-blonde hair sticking out from under her hat.

“Rose-of-Sharon Cassidy,” Old Lady Gibson smiles. “Been a long time since I’ve seen you.”

Cass grins in return. “Howdy, Mrs. Gibson. How’re you?”

“Can’t complain. Surprised to see you out here.”

“Well, after what happened—“ there’s a pause here, thick with grief “—to my dad, I thought I’d start the caravan up again. Keep the family business going. Now I’m wondering if you got anything for trading?”

It turns out the old lady has exactly what Cass needs—a bunch of cases of .45 ammo, several bottles of fresh water, and a nice piece of armor for one of the mercs. Cass is a bit short on caps, though.

“Is there any way I can owe you one?”

This isn’t a question most people ask the old lady, since the answer is always no. She demands payment in full, or no go. This time, though, old Mrs. Gibson thinks for a moment, and says, “Where you headed to next?”

“Thinking maybe New Vegas. I heard the Gun Runners are looking for some stuff I’m carrying.”

“How about this? You go the other way, to Goodsprings, and bring a delivery to Doc Mitchell. And you can have all this stuff for free.”

Cass’s eyes widen. It would be a loop around, but she could always cut up from Goodsprings back to New Vegas, now that all the deathclaws have been cleared out of the quarry. “All right,” Cass agrees. “But what’s the delivery?”

Old Lady Gibson smiles. 

After a few moments, they’ve swaddled up Alex and put the kid in the back of Cass’s wagon. The Old Lady turns to Cass and says, “Now when the good Doc is done with the Alex, you bring the kid right back here. This place belongs to the kid, now, and you make sure they get it. Understand?”

“All right, Mrs. Gibson,” Cass says, lowering the brim of her hat a bit. “I think I see what you’re saying.”

Old Lady Gibson nods, looks down at Alex, and gives the kid a short, desperate hug. She releases them almost as quickly as she grabbed them, before turning away and heading back to the scrap yard. The dogs circle around her, not making as much noise as usual. 

She never turns around, no matter how long it takes the caravan to finally disappear into the far off desert. 

That night she cleans Alex’s gun, leaving it next to the kid’s bed. She puts out extra food for the dogs, and fills a giant metal tub with fresh water for them to drink. She knows that the dogs will fend off most raiders, and any that are left when the caravan returns Cass can handle. And Alex will be healthy, and become the new owner of the scrap yard, and live a long, long time just like she did.

The underwater feeling is getting worse. She lays down, flat on her back, on her own bed. Breathing is harder now. It may be imagined, but it feels like her dogs are outside, howling at the moon. She closes her eyes, and she’s running with them. The cool air is flowing over her, and the rocks and plants of the desert are blur in the dark world. She’s running like she hasn’t in forty years; hard, fast, neverending. Everything ends, and she’s lived a long time. 

She stops, and howls at the moon.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from "Bottom of the River," by Delta Rae.


End file.
